The agenda of the Russia-Africa forum will be predominantly political

The Petersburg Politics Foundation prepared a report (available from Vedomosti) in which it analyzed the differences between the second Russia-Africa summit (to be held on July 27–28 in St. Petersburg) and the first, which was held in Sochi on October 23–24, 2019 motto “For Peace, Security and Development”. Fund experts noted that the forum in Sochi had a neutral-positive agenda. They stated that the significant representation of African delegations, the image effect of the World Cup in Russia, the relatively neutral attitude of the United States, the European Union and China towards Russian attempts to penetrate Africa created the backdrop for the first Russia-Africa Forum. Within Russia, the event was interpreted as a return to Africa and an element of continuity with the foreign policy of the Soviet Union.

Petersburg Politics highlighted several significant changes compared to 2019. After the start of the NWO, attitudes towards Russia became polarized in the world as a whole and among African countries. Some African countries, led by South Africa, came up with a peacekeeping initiative to resolve the Ukrainian conflict. At the same time, Russia’s influence on the socio-economic situation in African countries increased after the start of the NWO due to rising prices for food, fertilizers and energy carriers. Uncertainty about the work of Wagner PMC in Africa also affects the agenda of the forum.

Petersburg Politics experts are convinced that Russia’s bilateral relations with specific African countries are of the greatest interest in the context of the forum. But many of the significant issues in bilateral relations are unlikely to be in the spotlight, the fund’s experts say.

Preparatory work for the Russia-Africa summit began in the middle of last year during the African tour of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. For the first time, the Russian minister visited Egypt, the Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Ethiopia at the end of July 2022. At the beginning of 2023, Lavrov traveled to South Africa, the Kingdom of Eswatini (until 2018 – Swaziland), Angola and Eritrea, where he presented each African leader an invitation to visit the Russian northern capital. Finally, in June, he visited Kenya, Burundi, Mozambique and South Africa.

The choice of these states by the Russian minister was not accidental: they all take an emphatically neutral position in the Ukrainian crisis, which was noticeable at the UN General Assembly voting on Russia’s participation in the Human Rights Council in April 2022. At that time, only 10 voted for the resolution (out of 54 states), 35 states abstained or were absent, and the rest supported Moscow.

This year, political and security issues will prevail over other topics at the Russia-Africa summit, said Alexei Maslov, director of the Institute of Asian and African Countries at Moscow State University. “Firstly, due to changes in the international political environment, the agenda of the summit in 2019 has not yet been completed. Secondly, the African direction in Moscow’s policy is part of the general trend of Russia’s turn to the global South, so political issues are likely to dominate the forum,” the expert noted. According to Maslov, in matters of economic interaction with Africa, it will be difficult for Russia to compete with China, which today controls at least a third of the continent’s ports and has built a huge network of roads and railways there. The expert recalled that by the end of 2022, China’s total trade with African countries exceeded $300 billion, while our country gained only $18 billion.

On the other hand, continues Maslov, Africa has a huge trade and economic potential for our country. “The Russian companies Rosneft, Rusal, Alrosa are working in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, partly in Nigeria, mainly in oil production, in the development of other minerals,” the expert said. Russia may also be of interest to the states of the continent from the point of view of building factories for the production of agricultural equipment, hydroelectric power plants and joint port areas, the expert continues: “The program for the joint production of medical equipment and the construction of hospitals, which Russia is traditionally famous for on the continent, has not yet been worked out. Finally, our country could provide educational services.”

Another topic of discussion at the summit, according to Maslov, will be overcoming the anti-Russian sanctions of the West and issues of interbank cooperation: “It is not yet clear what types of currencies to use in settlements with African states. I believe that Moscow will link this issue in the context of interaction with the BRICS and the creation of a new bank within the organization.”

Over the past year, African countries have been under serious pressure from the West, so the second summit is being held in a somewhat more tense atmosphere than the first, said Rakhimbek Bobokhonov, senior researcher at the Center for Civilizational and Regional Studies at the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Nevertheless, African states are not afraid of the West and do not intend to sacrifice cooperation with Russia because of the “preventive conversations” that US diplomats arrange for African ambassadors. For Africa, Russia is now the most preferred partner, which is treated with much more warmth than the West and even China. In addition, in the near future, Moscow’s contacts with Africa can only become stronger, because due to the termination of the grain deal, direct negotiations between Russian companies and Africans on food supplies and humanitarian aid will be held at the summit. As for Wagner PMC, according to Bobokhonov, this structure will continue to work in Africa.